Fakes for Collectors

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268

THE; COLLECTOR AMD' ART CRITIC.

The manuscript of Burns's poem, "To Mary in Heaven," was recently
sold at auction at Sotheby's in London for $760, and. that of "Rab and
His Friends" for $200.

A genuine fourth edition copy of Bunyan's "Pilgrim ? s Progress," with
the rare portrait of Bunyan dreaming, by R. White, was bought on
American orders for $505. Three volumes of the "Pennsylvania Tracts"
brought $102.50.

The fourth- edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" is so rare that the
sale of only one other copy in recent years can be, traced. That one,
which was without the portrait and was otherwise defective, brought $60
in 1894-. The portrait is interesting, too, because, the book having been
pirated, the publisher of- the fourth edition put on the back of the portrait
this notice: "The fourth edition hath, as the third had,. the author's pic-
ture before the title, and hath more than twenty-two passages of addi-
tions, pertinently placed quite through the Book, which the counterfeit
hath not."

FAKES FOR COLLECTORS.

A wellrauthenticated story is told of a London art-dealer, who on a visit to Rome
became acquainted with an American tourist, whom he snowed various attentions
with an eye. to business; One morning crossing one of the public squares the dealer
told his victim a glib story of being able to have one of the antique statues standing
there removed, and after some parleying he sold this statue to the rich Westerner
for a very large sum, with the promise to ship it to the States. Shortly after the
gentleman's arrival home he received a large box containing a statue, to all ap-
pearances the same which he had seen on the Roman plaza. This was, of course,
an exact duplicate, doctored to resemble the original in antique appearance and
copied to order by some clever Italian sculptor. The wealthy miner still imagines
himself the proud owner of a unique example of ancient sculpture — until on a

Maison Ad. Braun & Co.

BRAUN, CLEMENT & CO., Succrs.

256 Fifth Avenue

Parts NEW YORK Dornach

Braun's Carbon Prints

Original reproductions of Paintings
and. Drawings by Old and Modern
Masters; Ancient and Modern Archi-
tectures iind Sculptures.

No other Branch House In America

PAINTINGS

AND WORKS OF ART, INSURED UNDER
SCHEDULE AT YOUR OWN VALUATION

STUDIO EFFECTS

INSURED UNDER
SPECIAL CONTRACT.

De,&of INSUMNCE Effected.

Alberti & Carleton

45 Pine St., New York Phone 2264 John

J. H. STRAUSS

Btt. (Batteries

High-Class Paintings and Prints.
285 Fifth Ave., N. E. Comer 30th St., N. Y.

PAUL FOINET FILS

ai RUE BREA, PARIS, FRANCE

A. C. FRIEDRICHS

Sole Agent for U. S. and Canada

Artists' 169 West 57th Street, NEW YORK

Mof^fialo Largest retail Artists' Material Dealer
IVldXCriaib in America

D. MILCH

Manufacturer*
of

HIGH-GRADE

Picture Frames

AND

DEALER IN PAINTINGS

34 West 27th St., 1£&£?Z5£1 New York

THE COLLECTOR AND ART CRITIC.

269

future visit to the "Eternal City" he sees the old original still standing in its
wonted place.

This is a fair sample of the manner in which the present collecting craze for the
antique and curios has generated an army of frauds and fakirs. The rage for col-
lecting has grown steadily these later years, and the appalling manner in which
this demand is being supplied by carloads and carloads of foreign and domestic
imitations points plain to the extensive, thriving trade in brumagem, worthless
rubbish of the counterfeiters.

There is no limit apparent to the frauds perpetrated. We know of the Brussels
factory of "Old Masters." Hundreds of the so-called Barbizon "pictures hanging
in American homes were painted in New York. It is not so long ago that the
present Prince of Wales Came across what he considered a fine picture by Corot
in Paris. He consulted four London experts, and upon their advice that it was
genuine and a finely-executed work of art, the Prince purchased it and presented
it to the Dublin Gallery of Modern Art. A Frenchman who visited the gallery
soon after the picture was hung recognized it as a poor copy of a painting by
Mesgoly, the original of which is now in a Budapest Museum. The auction rooms
of all large cities are filled with the rankest imitations and counterfeits of pic-
torial art.

The demand for antique furniture has offered one of the widest fields for the
skilful artisan to imitate marquetry, buhl work, Chippendale, old French' desks or
Dutch or colonial pieces. How many old clocks — grandfather's clocks, with sleepy
old brass face and lazy pendulum, have come from Holland, or rather did not come.

Of the antique brass fraud there is no end — brasses of the ancient memorial types,
colonial candlesticks, placques of Flemish pattern, old Sheraton brass fenders with
claw feet, Russian Samovars, Dutch "doofpotten," the copper boxes in which the
burning peat is smothered, and even tiny incense-burners of intricate design from
Hindoo palaces. The process of making decorative brasses is simple in the ex-
treme, demanding only a certain artistic ability, combined with a dash of mechanical
sense. The sheets of brass can be purchased, all ready for use, from any of the
foundries at a small cost. The article is manufactured by molding or stamping,
and the finish given by acids and other methods stamps upon the object the halo
of centuries.

Old cut-glass is produced to-day by machinery — the crystal appearance will in
a few years give place, however, to a- sickly greenish shade. A certain Paris maker

Woodstock, Ulster Co., N. Y. (In the Catskills)

JULY 1 to SEPTEMBER 15

Class in Painting — Leonard Ochtman
Class in Metalwork — E. B. Rolfe

" Byrdcliffe " has workshops, large studio, library, and

boardinghouse for students.

For information as to classes apply to

Leonard Ochtman

Carnegie Hall, New York

For board to

*R. i^adcIiffe-Whitehead, Manager
Woodstock, Ulster Co., N. Y.

PAINTINGS

BY

AMERICAN ARTISTS

The best obtainable always in stock

" Art Notes" giving special
information, sent to any
address on application. . .

WILLIAM MACBETH

450 Fifth Ave. , New York

Carriages

OF

EVERY
DESCRIPTION

FOR

Town or Country

J, B. Brewster k Co..

Eleventh Ave., Car. -49th Street

ftntobr.

OLDEST CARRIAGE HOUSE IN AMERICA

FREDERICK A. CHAPMAN

IMPORTANT

PAINTINGS

BY MASTERS OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL
OF 1830

391 FIFTH AVENUE ^joining Tiffariy's

2yo

THE COLLECTOR AND ART CRITIC.

of old English china is said to have made over half a million out of "imitation gen-
uines." The Chelsea gold anchor is extensively imitated. None of the hall-marks
of china plate count for anything, the condition of the glaze alone is a guide to the
expert.

With antique jewelry the manufacture is more difficult and expensive, so there
is not such an immense profit in this line of imitation. The siege of Peking was
a godsend to the dealer in these bibelots, and many jade ornaments, disguised by
clever tarnish on the gold mountings, have been sold for antique Chinese as the
spoils of war. Turkish and Egyptian jewelry, Venetian beads and antique neck-
laces offer wider scope to the fraudulent dealer.

Much of the "Old" Sheffield plate is "dipped" copper, and it is not surprising
that such immense quantities of so-called genuine "Sheffield" are year after year
disposed of.

The ingenuity of the forger is unlimited. "Antique" armor is made in Birming-
ham. Tanagra figurines, Egyptian scarabees, Greek coins, antique terra-cottas, an-
cient weapons, Florentine Renaissance marbles — they are made in Rome, Munich,
Paris, Antwerp and wherenot. The spurious print is a common trap. The demand
for examples of the celebrated engravers of the eighteenth century exceeds the
supply a hundred-fold, and the supply is furnished by a flood of reprints, and re-
productions, and much of the priceless work of Bartolozzi, Green, John Raphael
Smith, Ward, Schiavonetti and Cipriani can be traced to modern hands.

If one should become bewildered by this array of counterfeits and become con-
vinced of the fact that the most careful discrimination will not always serve to
protect collectors against fraud, some thought should be given how to escape the
toils of the forger or the fraudulent devices of shrewd and wily traders. A safe
resort would be to eschew all "antiques." There is enough romance in collecting
modern products of art to satisfy the most adventurous. How much greater satis-
faction ought it to be to buy, instead of valueless rubbish, cheap work of young
men, destined, perhaps, to become famous at some future day. At the moment
there comes to mind some animal bronzes by a young sculptor which will rival those
produced by Barye. It is not so very long ago that amateurs could buy for a few
thousand francs the works of a young unknown Spaniard by the name of Fortuny,
whose acknowledged masterpieces are now worth thousands of dollars. There

WILLIAM SCHAUS

THE BERLIN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY

415 Fifth Avenue

High-Class Fin e
Paintings... En s ravin s s

e£w e£* &r*

Etchings, Artistic Framing

have just published their new Catalogue,
containing about 400 illustrations of the best
subjects of their well-known publications
— high-class reproductions in Gravure. Fac-
similes and Carbons, of famous paintings
in European Galleries, by Old and Modern
Masters.

A copy wilt be sent 00 receipt of 50c. f which amount

will be reimbursed on receipt of initial order.
A visit to our SHO W-RO OMS is respectfully requested.

BERLIN PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY

14 East 23d St., Hadison Sq., South, New York

Original ideas on framing. Inquiries promptly acknowledged.

"Old Masters "

[Exclusively)

AT

The Ehrich Galleries

No. 8 West 33d Street

Near Fifth Avenue

NEW YORK

Expert opinion given as to the genuineness and authenticity
of Antique Paintings

THE COLLECTOR AND ART CRITIC.

271

is a man in Boston who, years ago, knew enough to buy Millet's drawings by the
hundred for a paltry thousand francs — and was laughed at for his pains; but now
one single drawing is worth what he paid for the lot. It is less than a generation
ago when a little Neapolitan sculptor, Genito, tramped around Rome trying to sell
his statuettes, representing Italian fishermen, for a few hundred francs. Yet, some
time after, Meissonier characterized these as "little masterpieces worthy of the
Renaissance, ,, and to-day they occupy places in museums.

A safe resort for the amateur collector of the "antique," however, may be by
confining his attention to those lines of production which cannot be imitated. Of
course, what has been done once can be done again,- but there are some things
which have been done once that cannot be done again without costing more than
they are worth. So the collector of fine laces may consider himself reasonably safe.
The skill, time and patience required to make a lace that would pass as old Vene-
tian or Point d'Alangon could not be employed in the counterfeiting business at a
profit. Laces can be and are copied by machinery, and such modern machine-made
laces are very beautiful indeed, but they are sold as factory goods.

The same may be said of antique Oriental rugs, which are extensively imitated,
but easily distinguished. The collector of ivory carvings may also rest assured that
his treasures are unquestionably' genuine, the material itself is rare and valuable
and it requires the hand of an artist to- execute the quaint and intricate designs
which the Chinese carvers have wrought out with such amazing skill. Old tapes-
tries, mediaeval illuminated manuscripts and Renaissance embroideries are also
among the productions of art which a collector can seek to acquire without much
danger of being cheated.

Places to be evaded by the collector should be the auctions, in private houses
especially, and most other auction places in general, unless he has the advice of
some competent expert. Rarely the half of what is sold in these private-house
auctions has been on the premises forty-eight hours before the sale takes place.
Paintings, curiosities and bric-a-brac have been put in by the auctioneer out of his
stock from his place downtown, on the avenue or one of the side streets. Gen-
erally these auctions are "stuffed."

Unless a person knozvs, he should in the pursuit of his hobby purchase only from
reliable dealers who are willing to guarantee clearly what they sell, or if not willing
to guarantee will say so.

JULIUS OEHME

j&eto &tt Galleries

Modern and Ancient Paintings

320-322 FIFTH AVENUE

Corner of 3 2d Street

ROBERT C. VOSE

Importer and Dealer in

MODERN
PAINTINGS

320 Boylston Street
BOSTON /. MASS.

The GREAT PICTURE LIGHT

I FRINK'S PORTABLE

PICTURE REFLECTORS

Nos 7034, 7035
Pat. Dec. 14, '97

For electric light, meet all requirements for
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could use one or more of these portable reflect-
ors to advantage. The fact that so many have
ordered th&>e outfits for their friends is prool
that their merits are appreciated. Height,
closed, 51 inches; extended, 81 inches. The
light from the reflector can be directed at any
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Frink's Portable Picture Reflector
with Telescope Standard

No. 7034, brass, polished or antique,
with plug and socket for electric
lamp ......... $27.50

No. 7035, black iron, with plug and
socket for electric lamp . . $16.50

These special Reflectors are used by all the
picture-dealers in New York, and by private
collectors not only in this country, but in Paris,
London, Berlin, and other cities. Satisfaction
guaranteed. Parties ordering these Reflectors
need not hesitate to return them at our expense
if not found satisfactory.

P. FRINK, 551 Pearl St.. New York City

GEO. FRINK SPENCER, Manager
Telephone, 860 Franklin